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Monday, 4 January 2016

Florence Nightingale and how women are airbrushed out of history

The Funeral of Florence Nightingale

One of my musical heroes is Country Joe McDonald. Country Joe is one of
the great writers of protest songs of the 60's flower power generation.
His band made one of the defining appearances at the woodstock festival,
with their anto Vietnam war song "I feel like I'm fixing to die rag".
As I am planning a trip to the USA later this year, I thought I'd see
when Country Joe was playing and maybe see if I could tie up a gig in
our itinery. One of the reasons I've always admired him, is because he
seemed to have a better grasp of the bigger picture than most of his
musical peers, as well as many politicians. What I wasn't expecting was a
fascinating section on his website concerning his research into
Florence Nightingale. McDonald explains on his website how he became interested in Nightingale.

"In the summer of 1981 I attended a weekend seminar on the problems of Vietnam
veterans. The event was sponsored by the Berkeley Veterans Assistance Center and
took place in the City of Berkeley Veterans Memorial in the civic center. It was a lightly
attended event but featured movers and shakers in the veterans movement who would
soon change just about everything for the better. One speaker was a Vietnam War
nurse named Lynda Van Devanter, who was the first Vietnam War nurse to "come out"
and speak for women in the military. As a member of the audience I was stunned at
the realization that I was also guilty of ignoring women in the military in my writings.

I went home and looked in the World Book Encyclopedia under nursing. I found
Florence Nightingale. In a brief biography it said that in 1854 as a grown
woman she had taken 38 English women off to nurse wounded and sick British
soldiers in the Crimean War. And that she suffered a "nervous disorder" for the rest of
her life. She lived to be 90 years old and was considered the inventor of modern
nursing. I immediately went to Holmes Books in Oakland and found an autographed
copy of Sir Edward Cook's biography of Florence Nightingale. And I promised
Lynda and other Vietnam War nurses I knew that I would write songs about them."

"I am glad to be given the opportunity of speaking briefly to
you of Florence Nightingale and her work. For she is "of those
who waged contention with their time's decay, and of the past are
all that cannot pass away." She is remembered throughout the
world for her heroic, almost superhuman labors during the Crimean
War. But in reality these formed only the beginning of a long
life of continuous effort, marked by achievements of truly
amazing character which have lived, grown, and spread to the ends
of the earth. Her reforms were fundamental and searching. They
struck at the roots of things, dealing with hospitals, the health
of the British soldier, the health of the working people,
culminating in the founding of District Nursing."

I had heard of Florence Nightingale at school. I thought of her as a rather posh lady, who became a nurse and went to the Crimea to dend British soldiers injured in the Crimea. Whilst this is clearly worthy of praise, it was only when I read Country Joe's research, that I realise just how scandalously she has been ignored. Nutting states "The School
of Nursing stands supreme among her magnificent achievements.". Given how many of us benefit from nursing care in our lives, how can the founder of this be so lamely glossed over?

McDonald has some "study questions" that scholars of Ms Nightingale should ask. Perhaps the two which interest me the most are

why is she remembered as a nurse and not a statistician,
reformer, military nurse corps leader, mathmatician, or scientist?

And

Why is FN's pioneer work on "homelessness" ignored? What happened to
the "district nursing" movement? Is not her concept of providing health
care to the homeless and poor as a preventative measure to homelessness
relevant today?

As someone who works with the homeless and sees many Ex Servicemen coming through our day centre, it is truly shocking that Florence Nightingale first identified the problem in the 1850's, yet we still see British war veterans destitute and homeless on our streets. This blog has covered many subjects, yet one that we perhaps haven't really touched on as much as we should are the heros who have contributed so much to the good things in our society, yet who are simply forgotten or seen as quaint figures from the past. Trafalgar Square has several plinths honouring victorious generals from long forgotten army campaigns. The "Fourth Plinth" is used as a site for all manner of art exhibitions. Isn't it perverse that Florence Nightingale, who used her expereinces in the Crimean war to improve the lives and care of millions of British citizens, by transforming nursing into a profession, is not commemorated? There are two things which I find distasteful. Firstly we always laud those who are good at killing people for the state, higher than those who save people for the state. The second is, as Country Joe notes, we seem far less keen to honour women who contribute to our society than men.

Florence Nightingale is rather patronisingly remembered as "The Lady with The Lamp", surelyw e should remember her as a fierce intellect who made an unequalled contribu

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About Me

Dyslexic punk rock guitarist, studio owner and author Barnet Eye blog, proprieter of Mill Hill Music Complex Studios. Born and raised in the London Borough of Barnet. Loves loud music, beer,curry and football and occasionally strings two coherent sentences together.
Prospective Lib Dem Candidate for Mill Hill Ward.
This blog is written and published by Roger Tichborne, 29 Millway, London, NW7 3QS

If you have received a penalty fare at a Thameslink Station and you sent an appeal off to the Independent Penalty Fare Appeals Service, did you notice that this says at the bottom of the letter you got back "London and South Eastern Railways T/A IPFAS". In other words, it's not independent, it's an arm of a train company. They actually run Blackfriars station.

I believe that it is a scandal that this service calls itself independent, but there is no right of appeal and it's run by one of the train operators. I believe that the penalty ticket scheme is a scam to generate extra profits for these companies.

A little tool to help you defeat the invisible men

I've added an IP address lookup tool. If you get an email or you have a stats counter on your blog, you can see who it is and where they came from using this. If you've got an email from someone, view the email. Click on File, then click on properties, then click on details. Now click on message source

You will see some text as follows :-X-Originating-IP: [1.2.3.4]

Where I've put 1.2.3.4, cut and paste this number into the IP lookup and hey presto, you know where the email came from.

If it says it's from your bank, but the IP address is Freds chipshop, you know it's a scam.

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